A Great Beauty

by A. O'Connor

  The door opened and John walked in.

  “Sorry for disturbing you, but I’ve just ordered tea in the drawing room and wondered if you cared to join me?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes – tea please!” said Hazel cheerily, standing up.

  “Yes, I think we deserve a tea break,” said Cecil with a smile.

  “How is your photography going?” asked John, walking over to inspect the camera equipment.

  “Excellent. But then how could it not – with Hazel as the subject? She is the ultimate professional.”

  “Well, I should be by this stage of my career – how many times have I sat for my portrait!” Hazel said.

  “She’s the best,” said John, smiling proudly at her.

  “Only because I learned from the best,” said Hazel as she walked to John, smiling at him. “This is just relaxation, John – I have such a busy week ahead of me. Dinner tomorrow night with Ramsay MacDonald at Downing Street, lunch the next day with dear Winston –”

  As Hazel continued to rhyme off her week’s schedule and John listened, Cecil watched the couple link arms as they walked from the studio.

  There seemed nothing particular to set the woman apart from the other women who walked down the street in Dublin that day. She was just a normal housewife going about her business on a normal day, running her suburban house in Rathmines on a tight budget as times were hard, being a good wife to her husband and mother to her two young sons. She was just another well-groomed housewife and there was no hint that she had once occupied a pivotal role at the heart of Irish politics. As she walked along, she wondered how many people on the street would even remember her name by now.

  It had been very different a decade ago. In the months after Michael’s death, Kitty had received thousands of letters of condolence. Letters from people she had never known or even heard of. People who had known Michael, people who had just met him briefly or people who had never known or met him but felt the need to put pen to paper to commiserate and to reach out to a grieving young woman. Kitty had become a symbol of tragedy for so many as they mourned Michael’s untimely death. The letters had kept her going as she fell into despair. The need to read each letter and write a reply gave her a purpose. It was as if in his death Kitty could finally be the woman he always wanted, protecting his legacy.

  But then the times had moved on. The civil war had ended, and in its wake left a broken divided country. People wanted to forget about the bad years, the wars, the hatred. As the country began the task of rebuilding, people were almost afraid to talk about the past. Afraid to open old wounds and find out the person you were speaking to might not be on the same side as you. It was too painful to remember so people chose to forget. And with that Kitty soon was forgotten too.

  Then, as she entered her mid-thirties, still deeply mourning Michael, she met a handsome ex-army officer called Felix Cronin. Felix hero-worshipped Michael Collins and fully understood how the special place he held in Kitty’s heart took precedence over everything else for her. Felix never tried to replace Michael and, in a way, felt it a privilege and honour to marry his hero’s fiancée. As for Kitty, there was much about Felix that reminded her of Michael. She had to make a decision: would she remain for ever a woman in mourning or at least try to rebuild a new life? So, they married.

  Kitty walked into a draper’s shop and started looking at the materials on display. The first thing she looked at was the price, the design second. She smiled to herself when she remembered a time when it had always been the opposite, in the good old days when she was at the heart of the Kiernan business empire. Things were different now. Money was always short. Felix drank too much, she had large doctor bills due to her failing health, and life in this new Ireland was a struggle. The cost to rebuild the country had been massive and investment was lacking due to the instability created by the wars.

  Kitty finally chose a fabric and ordered a section.

  “It’s a beautiful shade, isn’t it? It will go lovely with your colouring,” said the shop girl who looked at the elegant customer as she cut the fabric and decided she might have been a looker in her day.

  “It’s certainly a cheery colour,” said Kitty.

  The shop girl folded the fabric up and put it in a brown-paper bag.

  “That will be three shillings and two pence, please,” said the shop girl.

  Kitty reached into her bag for her purse. She opened it and took out a one-pound note. Ireland had broken away from using British sterling as its currency three years previously and now had its own currency like all independent nations. Kitty stared at the note as she had done hundreds of times before. It was a beautiful design with the haunting image of a woman’s face on the front of it, a women who personified Ireland. Sir John Lavery, the artist, had used his wife Hazel as the model. Kitty smiled wryly to herself, thinking not for the first time that she would never, ever be free of Hazel Lavery. Every time she went into a shop or a bank or a post office – every time she bought or sold something, she would have Hazel Lavery, with her enigmatic expression, gazing at her from the money she was handling. As Kitty slipped further into oblivion, Hazel Lavery had been immortalised as the face on millions and millions of pounds.

  Kitty walked down the street they lived on and opened her front door. She put her shopping down on a side table in the hall. She listened but could hear no noise and realised the child-minder Moira had not brought the children back from the park yet. The eldest, Felix, was now five and had been named after his father. The youngest was two and they had named him Michael Collins Cronin. It had raised some eyebrows that she had named her son after her dead lover, but her husband Felix understood and fully approved. And that was what she loved most about Felix: he never questioned or felt intimidated about her love for Michael. He accepted it as a fact of life. Felix might not be the best husband in the world and often they did not get on, but Kitty would always love him for that understanding.

  She walked down the hallway and into the kitchen to make herself some tea. Then she came back down the hallway and into the front parlour where she sat down on the couch and gazed at the painting that was on a stand in the corner of the room. The painting had been there since the day she and Felix had married and moved into that house. It was a portrait of Michael Collins by Sir John Lavery that had been painted during the treaty negotiations in London in 1921. After Michael died, the Laverys had gifted her the painting. Having the painting allowed Kitty to believe she had a part of Michael still with her. And for that, if nothing else, Kitty would always be grateful to Hazel Lavery.

  The End

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Hazel Lavery died in 1935 at the age of fifty-five after falling ill. Her untimely death sent a shock wave through London society, with Winston Churchill becoming often depressed, missing his close friend. It is interesting to contemplate what role Hazel would have assumed for herself as Churchill’s advisor and confidante when he became Britain’s wartime leader a few years later, if she had lived. A role she would no doubt have relished.

  Hazel’s face continued to appear on Irish banknotes for the rest of the century, only finally being replaced in 2002 with the introduction of the Euro as Ireland’s currency. John Lavery outlived his wife by some years. During the blitz he left Cromwell Place and went to live with his stepdaughter Alice who had married an Irishman and was living in Kilkenny. He died there in 1941, aged eighty-four. His reputation as a world-renowned artist has flourished in the decades since.

  Kitty Kiernan died aged fifty-three in 1945 of Bright’s disease. She was buried in Glasnevin cemetery as close to Michael Collins’ grave as was possible.

  The Lavery mansion in Kensington later played a role in another famous liaison. In the last part of the twentieth century the building became a gallery owned by antiques expert Oliver Hoare who had a relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales. John’s famous studio became known as the Lavery Room. At time of writing the building is being renovated and will be an art exhi
bition centre.

  As Ireland fought for its independence, Michael Collins became internationally known as a figure of mystery, daring and tactical genius. It is amazing to think that he had time for a personal life during those critical and hectic years, living life on the run and being the most wanted man in the empire. However, the exact opposite was true. Perhaps it was the danger of living under the constant threat of capture or death, but Michael and the people in his life lived life to the full – perhaps with the knowledge that they might not be there tomorrow. His relationship and subsequent engagement to Kitty Kiernan is laced with intrigue and tragedy. The infamous ‘love triangle’ with Harry Boland has all the hallmarks of a Greek tragedy and I hoped in this novel to be able to show the emotions Michael, Kitty and Harry must have enjoyed and suffered during this time.

  Kitty was a fascinating person. A woman with little or no interest in politics, she is now almost viewed as an afterthought in history. And yet her relationships with Harry Boland and Michael Collins put her at the very heart of the epic story of Ireland’s struggle for independence. Often viewed just as a tragic figure in the aftermath of Michael Collin’s death, I wanted to show her as the vivacious, fun but complex woman that captured the hearts of not just one but two of Ireland’s heroes. I also wanted to draw attention to intriguing and little-known elements of her life, for example the assassination of the police constable in her family hotel and the fact her sister Maud was engaged to and married Michael Collins’ close friend and second cousin Gearóid O’Sullivan – the man who raised the tricolour over the General Post Office during the Easter Rising. These elements undoubtedly brought Kitty much closer to the furnace of what was happening during those dangerous and turbulent times and contradicts the image of her as being only a remote romantic figure on the fringes of events.

  Then there is Lady Hazel Lavery. Considering the pivotal role she played in Ireland’s independence, it is perhaps unfair that she isn’t more widely known and appreciated. Her image gazed enigmatically from Irish banknotes for decades and yet she remained largely unknown. Hazel’s work for Irish independence and commitment to bringing peace to Ireland has not been properly acknowledged. Perhaps it was the fact she was a titled London society hostess that alienated her from another legacy she might have enjoyed in an independent Ireland. Or perhaps it was the controversial friendship she had with Michael Collins that made her an uncomfortable player in Irish history.

  It is impossible to say exactly what the real relationship between Michael and Hazel was. The sequence of events in this novel follows an actual timeframe. When Kitty wrote to Michael saying she had heard there was a society woman in London in pursuit of him, she must have had insecurities regarding her fiancé and the new and very unexpected position he found himself holding in London high society once the truce was called. Clearly Michael and Hazel had become very close. And this closeness became well known at the time with the newspaper referring to Hazel as his sweetheart.

  I wanted to draw attention to the last fateful week of Michael’s life when the Laverys travelled to Dublin, and the pivotal role Hazel was playing in Michael’s life by then. Hazel and Michael had grown so close that they did spend much time in each other’s company during that final week – the last of his life. Piecing together the chain of events, they did go to Kilteragh for the dinner party and met George Bernard Shaw, unaccompanied by Hazel’s husband John. After the dinner party they did go for that drive in the mountains where they were the target of an assassination attempt.

  By Hazel belligerently attempting to wear widow’s weeds to Michael’s funeral the next week, there is a clear indication that she wished to be seen by the world as the woman in Michael’s life – regardless of the severe hurt and humiliation this would have caused both her husband John and Kitty Kiernan. But an actual affair could have still been just a fantasy in Hazel’s mind. Their relationship is a mystery and here I have tried to join the dots of that mystery. But the only two people who knew what really happened between them were Michael and Hazel.

  A Great Beauty is an author’s interpretation of the events.

  Now that you’re hooked why not try

  By Royal Appointment

  also published by Poolbeg

  Here’s a sneak preview of

  the Prologue

  By

  Royal

  Appointment

  prologue

  1871

  Queen Victoria sat on her couch in the audience room at Windsor Castle as the Prime Minister William Gladstone was shown in. As she watched him respectfully approach her, she was not looking forward to the meeting. She had never liked Gladstone. He was austere, a perfectionist who never tired of pointing out perceived imperfections in others. Even Victoria was not exempt from his disapproval.

  “Your Majesty,” said Gladstone as he bowed to her.

  “Prime Minister.” She nodded to him.

  “I understand the Prince of Wales has been ill? How is his condition?” enquired Gladstone.

  “He is poorly, Prime Minister. He has taken to his bed in Sandringham but is getting the best of care and I have no doubt will recover soon.”

  “Typhoid is a terrible illness. But I do not need to tell you that, ma’am, when it caused the premature death of your dear husband.”

  “That, amongst other things,” muttered Victoria under her breath.

  “With the Prince falling ill and the approach of the tenth anniversary of your husband’s death, I thought it might be an apt time to discuss concerns surrounding the royal family, ma’am,” said Gladstone.

  “I should think these events make it anything but an apt time, Prime Minister,” said Victoria.

  “Perhaps so, but the issues need to be discussed in any case.”

  “What exactly needs to be discussed?” Victoria said curtly.

  “Ma’am, I do not think I can remember a time when the royal family have been so out of favour with the country as they are now.”

  “Out of favour?” Victoria sounded more irate than concerned.

  “Ma’am, the press is openly critical of you and the public is equally dissatisfied.”

  “The press is always critical and the public never satisfied. To try and make them otherwise is a fruitless exercise.”

  “You have not been seen in public for many years, ma’am. The country is beyond puzzled at this stage at your continued absence from public life and, quite frankly, angered by the perceived neglect of royal duty.”

  “Prime Minister, may I remind you that I am in deep mourning for my beloved husband.” Victoria’s tone was at its most icy.

  Husband and first cousin, thought Gladstone, wondering whether the close blood relationship had made the attachment excessively intense. “I understand that, ma’am, but the country does not. They think that two years, maybe three or four, may be sufficient to be in deep mourning. But ten years, ma’am? The country is perplexed and your popularity is at its very lowest.”

  “My aim never was to be popular, Prime Minister. I have done everything out of a sense of duty.”

  “Indeed.” Gladstone bowed slightly. “But the situation has now become so unsatisfactory that the press is openly questioning the need for a monarchy at all and calls for a republic are getting stronger every day. May I remind you that Napoleon the Third has just been ousted in France and that country has become a republic again?”

  “There is no need to remind me, Prime Minister. I assure you that I am fully informed of international affairs, despite what you may think. Your fears of Britain becoming a republic are unfounded – that will never happen here. One thing you can always be sure of in Britain is monarchy and rain!”

  “Ma’am, I have urged you before that if you feel you are not up to performing your duties in public then you should allow the Prince of Wales a role in government and let him represent you. At least then the country would have a royal presence, rather than this gaping void we have had for ten years.”

  “That i
s quite out of the question. My son is simply not ready to assume an official royal role and I will not jeopardise this monarchy by giving him a role that he is not prepared for.”

  “But, ma’am, the Prince desperately wants the active role that you are denying him.”

  “What he desperately wants and what he is capable of are two entirely different things.”

  “I think him more than capable,” objected Gladstone.

  “And I think I know my own son better than you do.”

  “The reality is – because the Prince has been denied an official role by you – he too has become deeply unpopular. As he has no official function, he and the Princess of Wales are seen as frivolous and uncommitted. He has acquired the image of a playboy more interested in parties and alcohol, amongst other things, with his decadent set – the Marlborough set, I believe the press calls them – than showing any interest in his royal duty.”

  “If the Prince has that reputation, then perhaps he deserves it and it is through no fault of mine that he acquired it,” said Victoria.

  Gladstone looked at the small dour-looking woman dressed as always in mourning black and realised he was wasting his time. He and previous prime ministers had tried to make her see that her all-consuming grief, along with her distaste and distrust for her son, was destroying the institution that her husband had worked so hard to build up during his lifetime. The situation was now so critical that her family’s future was in real jeopardy, but she refused to see it.

  There was knock on the door and a footman came in.

  “Excuse the interruption, ma’am, but an urgent telegram has arrived for you from Sandringham,” he said.

  Victoria nodded to the footman and beckoned him to come to her. She took the telegram and as she read it she paled.